| Citation | Professor Frances Ashcroft is distinguished both for her studies on ATP-sensitive K+-channels and for those on the regulation of insulin secretion. She is recognised internationally as a leading authority in both these fields. In 1984 she elucidated the mechanism by which glucose stimulates insulin release from the pancreatic beta-cell. Her work identified an ATP-sensitive K+-channel whose closure in response to glucose metabolism leads to beta-cell depolarisation, Ca-2+-influx and insulin secretion. More recently she was one of the first to clone the pore-forming subunit of the beta-cell K-ATP channel and to show that the beta-cell K-ATP channel is a complex of two proteins, a pore-forming subunit (Kir 6.2) and a regulatory unit (SUR1) which acts as a target for sulphonylureas, used to treat non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Frances Ashcroft's work has implications outside the field of insulin secretion and has led to the recognition that the K-ATP channel also plays important functional roles in the physiology and pathology of many tissues, including heart, brain, skeletal muscle and smooth muscle. |